The edmunds anti-polygamy act
In March 1882 the US Congress enacted, and President Chester A. Arthur signed into law The Edmunds Anti-Polygamy Act. The act made polygamy a felony in federal territories and bigamy or unlawful cohabitation a misdemeanor. This act and the Edmund-Tucker Act of 1887had marked impact on the Church and its members. Church assets were seized, and many of those practicing polygamy went into hiding.
The opening of the offensive against the leaders of the Church was marked by the arrival in Salt Lake City on August 23, 1884, of a new chief justice, Charles S. Zane.
The first case under the Edmunds Act came before the Zane court on October 15, 1884.The defendant, Rudger Clawson, who later became the president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, was found guilty of unlawful cohabitation, was fined $800.00 and sentenced to four years in the state penitentiary.
In less than three months after the Rudger Clawson case, President Woodruff began to feel the pressure exerted by the ruling. He recorded in his journals that his home, along with other of the brethren, were being watched by US Marshalls waiting to catch the leadership of the Church and arrest them under the Edmunds Act and imprison them.
Protecting Leadership
In reaction to these actions against Church leaders, an “underground railroad” system was developed. Trusted men and women watched the watchers. The leaders were moved under cover of darkness from one home to another. When the US Marshalls were getting too close, the leaders were taken out of the city to other settlements south of Salt Lake City. The watchers were not only after the leaders of the Church, but they were also after their families, hoping the arrest of plural wives would draw out the leaders so they could be arrested.
This resulted in Church leaderships’ families hiding in settlements far away from Salt Lake City. For example, President Woodruff, while supervising the construction of the Manti Temple,hid in a cave on the northern side of that valley. He would watch a home next to the temple site. If the lady of the home put her bed sheets on the clothesline, it was a signal it was safe forPresident Woodruff to come into town.
President Woodruff & Bunkerville
In January 1885, President Woodruff found himself in St. George, Utah, living in a room prepared for him in the St. George Temple. As he was preparing to return to Salt Lake City, he received a telegram warning him to stay away as there were “heavy storms in the north.”
These warnings from George Q. Cannon prompted President Woodruff to leave St. George on February 5, 1885, on a trip down the Virgin River to Bunkerville. There he held a meeting with the Saints.
President Woodruff remained in Bunkerville for three weeks as the guest of Bishop Edward Bunker Jr. He settled into the routine he had followed in exile—reading, writing, and counseling. During this time, word came that six strange men had been seen lurking around the town of Bunkerville. President Woodruff called Myron Abbott to take him down to the river where they made camp. President Woodruff shot two ducks to eat and read the Deseret News. The scare turned out to be false when the six men left town towards California.
President Woodruff’s birthday went unnoticed this time except for a small entry in his journal stating, “I am Seventy-eight years old this day,” he wrote on Sunday, March 1, 1885. “I find myself in Bunkerville, Lincoln County, Nevada. I have been driven from my wives and children thence for the gospel’s sake.”
When President Woodruff went to Bunkerville, word spread quickly that he was there. Everyone watched out for him. No stranger could enter the town without the people knowing. They never called him by his name. When he arrived, he would let the bishop know the name he was traveling under and everyone in town used that name in speaking to him or about him. He would often dress in old buckskin clothes and spend the days in the fields hunting for quail and doves or ducks on the river.
After spending three weeks in Bunkerville, two men from St. George arrived in town and prepared to take President Woodruff back to St. George. President Woodruff asked Myron Alma Abbott and a few other men to travel with them and scout ahead of his buggy for anything suspicious.
Seizing church property
These years of legal pressure of the Church were very damaging. The US Government took all Church property, including the temple and leaders’ homes. The Church was required to pay rent to use their own buildings and to pay taxes on property the government had taken from them.
The Manifesto of 1891
The result being that President Woodruff, upon receiving a revelation from God, wrote the Manifesto of 1891 outlawing plural marriages in the Church. This manifesto created some chaos within the Church for a time. However, within a few years the US Government returned all Church property, titles, and monies. Utah was granted statehood on January 4, 1896.